36 Knowledge Sharing Barriers

I have developed a number of Knowledge Management (KM) strategies for various clients over the past 11 or so years, and was recently asked to revamp and update the KM strategy for a large UK public sector organization that had undergone a fairly radical restructure. Previous experience of working with (UK) public sector clients told me that no matter how radical the restructure; the basic hierarchical nature of the organization would remain (flattening of structures doesn’t come naturally to public sector organizations). And where you have several layers of hierarchy you also have the potential for mis-communication, silo’d working practices and generally poor knowledge sharing. In fact, nearly all of the conditions that would work in opposition to establishing an effective KM strategy.

Incidentally, for anyone put off by ‘KM jargon”, I should explain that the definition of ‘KM’ for the strategy I’m referring to is “organisational and personal learning and sharing”.

With these points in mind, I thought I would do a bit of research into the most common barriers to knowledge sharing, and actually include these in the final strategy paper. That way the business sponsor and senior managers tasked with implementing the KM strategy could audit their existing practices with a view to identifying and perhaps predicting the sources of resistance or ‘drag’ and plan accordingly. Remembering of course that KM is not something that you ‘do’ to people. You need to take the people in the organisation with you on this journey and for them to see the benefits of knowledge sharing for themselves.

The following is a list of 36 knowledge-sharing barriers, based on an academic paper by Andreas Riege (Riege, A. 2005. “Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must consider.” Journal of Knowledge Management 9(3): 18-35)

The list gives some indication of the complexity of knowledge sharing as a value-creating organisational activity and is divided into three categories: individual, organisational and technological.

Individual knowledge sharing barriers

general lack of time to share knowledge, and time to identify colleagues in need of specific knowledge;

apprehension of fear that sharing may reduce or jeopardise people’s job security;

low awareness and realisation of the value and benefit of possessed knowledge to others;

dominance in sharing explicit over tacit knowledge such as know-how and experience that requires hands-on learning, observation, dialogue and interactive problem solving;

use of strong hierarchy, position-based status, and formal power (“pull rank”);

reluctance to use IT systems due to lack of familiarity and experience with them;

lack of training regarding employee familiarisation of new IT systems and processes;

lack of communication and demonstration of all advantages of any new system over existing ones.

For anyone tasked with either developing or implementing a KM (knowledge sharing) strategy, a good starting point would be to use this list to audit the current practice and thereby determine where the most effort is required, and if possible, where the most value can be created (i.e. biggest bang for the buck).

I hope readers will find this post useful. I will be happy to answer any questions on developing and implementing knowledge sharing strategies.

Thanks – glad you found the article useful. “Organisational and personal learning and sharing” is a bit of a mouthful I know, but some people get put off by anything ‘KM’, thinking it requires some sort of specialist knowledge or skill.

Thanks for this. Biggest barrier I see is fear of losing job security by losing control of information. Makes sense in an information economy – knowledge is not only power but financial security. How can we fix this?

See also “Diagnosing and fighting knowledge-sharing hostility” by Husted and Michailova, 2002, Organizational Dynamics, 31, 60-73. Terrific little paper that organizes the same general subject matter around three threads: behaviour of the knowledge transmitter, the knowledge receiver, and transactions based around the substance of the metrial itself.

Dannielle – people (staff) need information to do their jobs. There can be no excuse for having wrong or out of date information, since that points to a process failure. Having access to information that one is not to entitled to is another matter, but not sure if that’s what you mean by ‘losing control of information’? Using knowledge for power and security will only secure short-term advantage, since this infers ‘accumulation’ of knowledge rather than fluid knowledge sharing. Those willing to share knowledge are more likely to have knowledge shared with them. Those who don’t will soon be tapping into an empty well, and finding that the knowledge they have accumulated is increasingly irrelevant. Security comes from showing that you have some value to the organisation, and (IMHO) those who share knowledge are more likely to be seen to be adding value.